Myth and Reality
by Kawari
Summary: *Kaito*, Aoko couldn't believe it, that what was sitting in front of her, was a bizarre hybrid of human and myth, a caricature of her friend.
1. Prolog

The characters aren't mine and I don't make money with this story. Futhermore English is my second language, so I apologize if there are any errors in it and hope to be excused.

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**Myth and Reality**

Prolog

„Kaito…", Aokos voice was nothing more than a whisper. In front of her sat, on a chair in her father's office, Kaito who had been missing since the last three months. A blanket around his shoulders, a cup of hot chocolate in his hands. But at the same time it was not Kaito.

That what was sitting in front of her, was a bizarre hybrid of human and myth, a caricature of her friend. When he looked up at her, only one eye looked at her like a cyclops from one of the greek sagas. And instead of his legs, his whole abdomen, an about 3,60 meters long snake tail grew out of his waist. There, where his abdomen SHOULD have been.

"Aoko...", his voice sounded small, tired, exhausted... and yet indisputable his.

Hakuba who stood a few feet behind Kaito, began in a calm and gentle tone to speak. "Aoko-chan, maybe you should sit down too. Kaito-kun wanted to tell us (of course her father was there too) right now what happened to him, that now he..."

'...looks like a monster.' Aoko finished the sentence in her thoughts, which everybody in the room thought about but no one dared to say out lout.

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Hope you enjoyed it so far. ;) 


	2. What happened

Here is the second chapter of Myth and Reality... or the first chapter, considering that the chapter before this is the prolog.

And many thanks to Jamica who helped me with the translation. :)

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**What happened**

Feeling numb, as if some kind of safety device had been put in front of all of her emotions - 'That's the shock', a voice whispered in her mind. - feeling everything to be unreal, as if all of this was only some bizarr dream, she rounded the desk of her father and sat down behind it in her fathers chair.

Kaito drank a sip of his hot chocolate, put it down and stared at the cup in his hands, which were resting in his lap. He audible breathed in, as if he wanted to fortify himself for that, what he now had to do.

"I... at first I want to thank you Mr. Nakamori. You as well Hakuba, that you didn't just run screaming away but smuggled me in here", he swallowed dryly, "everything... everything started the day of the last Kid heist."

"The day he was last seen", Nakamori followed mentally the story.

Kaito told with a lot of pauses in it, that he had been very tired that day and probably therefore he hadn't seen the man who had appeared behind him or better he had seen him too late. After he woke up from his unconsciousness, he found himself in a lab, on an - as it seemed - operating table. Then they gave him an anesthetic and he blacked out again.

When he came to the second time, he was in a cell with two other people, changed the way he was now. The two cellmates also weren't completely human anylonger. The woman, maybe 28 years old with long dyed brown hair, had become a centaur. Her abdomen was that of a light brown horse.

The little boy, 3 or 4 years old, had become a dragon-like being. He had bat-like green wings, which grew out near his shoulder blades, a scaled tail with small (still rounded) quills, which started where his spine ended. And he spit fire. It wasn't a big flame, more like a turned on lighter, but it was difficult to make the child understand that he could hurt someone (in short his cellmates) or himself with his flame throwing, which seemed to amuse him.

In the next 3 months on them and the many, many other prisoners from all age groups were performed test after test. Kaito himself felt it worst when he laid there, fixed on a table with metal bonds around his wrists and tail, his head was helt tight and he was forced with pressure on his cheeks to open up his mouth and then a spot at his neck was massaged in order to make him secrete venom, which was filled up in test tubes to be stored and used later for other things.

This treatment didn't really hurt, but it was in its own way unpleasant like nothing else they did to him. Like being sexually (gentle, but still) touched by someone when oneself doesn't really want it. Or when someone with telepathy would break into the psyche, the mind of someone else. Into the mind of a person who is very private and naturally closed off. But it is broken into that someone's mind and went through their thoughts without the person being able to do something against it.

Similar to this Kaito felt it to secrete venom, for him it was something very private. Something, he now was forced to do, without him being able to fight it.

Finally, after said 3 months, Kaito was able to flee.

"... and I took the shortest way here."

A depressed and partly horrified silence had sat in. Aoko cried silent tears, presumedly she wasn't even aware of them, Nakamori and Saguru were deeply in thoughts.

Kaito yawned and Aoko could see his long canines - now poison fangs.

"They don't go straight down like I thought they would. But are slightly curved into Kaito's oral cavity", she noticed with distantly wonder, still too numb from everything she had experienced and heard, to feel stronger emotions.

Nakamori looked up when Kaito yawned. "Kaito, come on... I'll drive you home and will explain everything to your mother. You look like you're about to fall over. Tomorrow we will get together and talk about everything else."

Kaito just nodded with another yawn and stood up - or more precisely straighted himself.

"He is just as tall as before. Only that he now has additionally a few meters tail on the floor", Aoko clinical observed, "he could make himself taller or smaller, now that he doesn't have legs anylonger. Instead he seems to make his 'abdomen' automatically the same height as his legs have been and the rest of his tail he apparently uses to 'walk'."

Kaito put his cup down on the table. Nakamori opened up the door and looked out. Luckily it was right in the middle of the night and there were hardly any people present. Nakamori motioned Kaito, who then wormed, the hood of his sweater pulled down deep into his face again, behind the inspector out of the office, followed by Aoko and Saguru.

They separated themself from Saguru at the parking lot, where they got in Nakamori's car and drove home. Aoko sat on the passenger seat. On the back seat wasn't room enough for her, because of the extra meters of lengths Kaito now possessed.

At home Kaito got hugged fiercely by his mother, even so there had been a moment of horror at first. She shooed her son into his room, so that he could lay down and sleep. Aoko got sent home by her father too.

Now both single parents sat together on the couch and talked about everything. Aoko's father had just told Kaito's mother about that, what Kaito had told them only half an hour ago.

"God. I was on my way to my car when Kaito popped up beside me in the bushes", he shaked his head, still bewildered because of the whole story, "at first I thought it was only a drunk or a pick-pocket. Then he suddenly started to speak...

"Inspector? Inspector Nakamori? It's me. Kaito. Kaito Kuroba."

The officer strained his eyes, to be able to see in the dark more than just outlines. The voice at least was that of the missing person. "Kaito? My boy, are you it? Damn! Where the hell have you been all this months?!"

He just wanted to take a step to the once missed person, when he was stopped with a sharp, panick-stricken command. "No! No inspector! Please... please don't come any closer."

That let him abruptly stand still and a wave of pity overcame him. What the boy must have lived through to sound so afraid now?

"Kaito, keep calm. Everything is alright. I will stand here if you want that. Everything is okay. You are safe here. Nobody will harm you. Everything is alright", he spoke calmly to the teenager. It seemed to do the trick. He heard how Kaito under his hood, which cloaked his face, breathed once deeply in. Possibly to calm his nerves.

"Inspector? I... please promise me to not run screaming away. I...", his voice - fear, uncertainty and desperation in it audible; a plea to be accepted the way he was - broke off.

Nakamori's thoughts chased one another through his brain. That request together with the hood pulled into his face, allowed only one conclusion: Someone had disfigured Kaito's face. But whatever it was, if burned flesh, scars because of knife cuts or other sharp objects. Even if they had been as sadistic as to cut off his nose or had torn one of his eyes out of its socket.

('He still is able to see, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to notice that I wanted to go to him just a moment ago. His lips have to be intact as well or his voice would sound different', spoke up Nakamori's analytical part of his brain.)

Nothing would shock him or cause horror. For that he had seen too much already in his career as an officer.

"Kaito", continued the inspector to speak calmly, "I promise you, I will do nothing like that. Whatever it is I am sure I can handle it. You don't need to worry."

Short silence. "Kaito", Nakamori tried again, "Kaito, can you tell me what happened?"

High-pitched laughter, so when people only pull themselves together with the last of their iron will in order to not break down. Nakamori winced. That confirmed that Kaito must have lived through unspeakable horror.

If he was afraid of people that could mean that he had been beaten - tortured - or that he had been sexuelly abused. Or even both. In combination that he didn't want to show his face, it was as good as confirmed that the first possibility was true. Whereby that didn't eliminate the second.

"Inspector...", desperate laughter again, "I can guaranty that whatever you have seen in your career as an officer until now, nothing will have prepared you for this."

Pity welled up again inside him, when he could hear Kaito coming nearer. The poor boy really must have lived through some horrible things, to think that he - in his long career - wasn't prepared to see a victim of violence and abuse.

Nakamori paused. He couldn't hear Kaito's advancing steps. In fact it sounded like an... evenly rustling. Was a leg of Kaito's broken that he now had to drag it behind? No... that sounded different, then he at least would be able to hear the heavy steps of Kaito's healthy foot, which he couldn't.

Kaito was near enough now, that he could see him clearly and not only shadowy silhouettes.

His upper body stood out clearly from the bushes, while the rest was still concealed by them. He slowly put his hands at the brim of his hood and pulled it back. Then Kaito stepped completely out of the bushes.

Shock was the only thing Nakamori could feel when out of Kaito's face only one eye stared back at him. When Kaito stepped completely out of the bushes, Nakamori flinched and took a step back, still staring at Kaito's face. Slowly his gaze wandered down and he had to realize WHY he hadn't heard foot steps.

He stared back again into Kaito's face, who looked at him with tension and fear, seemingly ready to flee at any moment, should he - Nakamori - show a wrong reaction. That expression in Kaito's eyes... 'EYE', Nakamori corrected himself in his thoughts. ...brought the inspector out of his state. He distanced himself from everything to be able to work professionally again. As in a murder case or a robbery.

"Kaito, it..." 'doesn't look so bad?' Nakamori winced in his thoughts. "...come into my office. There we can talk. Ok? Hakuba should be still there too. If you believe it or not, but he has pulled all-nighters to find you. He will be happy to see you... 'well? Healthy?' ...to see you again."

Aoko's father rubbed over his face with his hands. "Hakuba showed pretty much the same reaction, when he saw Kaito. I sent him to phone Aoko so that he had something to do and had time to stomach the first shock a bit. Even so the boy is a brillant detective, that doesn't change the fact that he is still only 17 and hasn't seen so much cases as a veteran. And even I was shocked to the bone. I don't even want to imagine how Hakuba must have felt."

He sighed and looked to Kaito's mother, who sat opposite to him. Her hands, in which she held a cup of tea, shook sligthly. She put down the cup on the coffee table, buried her face in her hands and cried. Nakamori stood up, sat beside her and took her in his arms. "Sh... Midori. We will get those bastards, who did this to Kaito. Sh... sh... everything will be alright. Don't worry."

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**A scene that was cut out:**

Kaito was partly wary by the nearness of the centaur. Because he was afraid, that she accidently might step on his tail with one of her hooves. But it turned out that he should have been more wary because of the child, when one day it - when he was exhausted from one of the countless tests and snoozing - thought it had to live out its oral-phase and bit fairly strong into the end of his tail.

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The name of Kaito's mother is fictional. I used a common Japanese name for a woman, because in the series it is never said how she is called. Hope you enjoyed it. ;) /))


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